My perspective is a little different I guess. I think that when our partner is being secretive and hiding something (as opposed to just keeping some things private), we can sometimes sense that. I know I can. Hubs has often said he doesn't understand how I ALWAYS knew when he wasn't being truthful to me, and I always did, even though there was no proof.

Our relationship didnt' start in a totally healthy place, so we do have a history of my trust being broken and because of that our ideas about secrecy vs. privacy are different from someone who hasn't had those issues in their relationship.

For now he has to understand that my trust is not yet completely rebuilt and that the only thing that will do that is TIME and him living up to his side of the bargain. Were he to break that now, I'm not sure we'd get through it as I've "restarted" the trust between is multiple times and it got harder each time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nycindie

If I had issues with something or suspected him of anything (which actually rarely happened after the first year), I would ask him what was going on. The only thing he ever hid from me, quite well I might add, was the depth of his unhappiness in the last two years of our marriage. And I think I must've known because I would think about asking to talk to him and then stopped myself, I guess so I wouldn't have to hear the painful truth.
.

I agree with asking them. I did this with my husband, and he lied right to my face. The OP did ask her husband and he lied right to her face. We're not talking about a healthy communication/trust cycle here-- we're talking about a relationship where that is not happening. When my husband lied to me, I KNEW he was lying, but I didn't have "proof", so he could go on lying to me and what could I do? My trust and heart were breaking but as long as he denied what was going on there was no way to work through the issue because he would not admit it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TL4everu2

I think that some of us are getting onto the wrong person's case here.

While overthinker may have been in the "wrong" for snooping....It STILL doesn't eclipse the fact that her hubby crossed that boundary. He was MORE "in the wrong" in the first place than her IMO, and he needs to be aware that it has hurt her, and that if there are certain boundaries, they need to be adhered to by both parties. He has instilled a lack of trust in Overthinker, now, that wasn't there before. This mistrust, will only serve to foster MORE jealousy unless it is dealt with.

When my hubs lied to me and I knew it I didn't say anything for quite a while, but the fact that I knew it had happened withered our relationship, and keeping it inside was WAY worse because I kindled that mistrust and heartbreak until I went a little nutty and I DID go into his email, and found the email with the proof that I had been right, my feelings WERE correct. I told my hubs and he got really mad, but later we talked and he got mad BECAUSE HE GOT CAUGHT. Yes he was mad I read his email, but in a way he had left me no choice on how to get the issue into the open and deal with it in one way or the other-- either we could get through it and learn how to communicate and that lying wouldn't work, or we'd realize it was too far gone and break up. Luckily the first happened, but had he been so angry with me and not taken responsibility for breaking the boundary AND lying to me it would have been the right decision to leave the relationship.

I understand where people are coming from about privacy and how they wouldn't want their SO invading their privacy, but I'm feeling like that's coming from people who DO NOT LIE to their partners. I think once you prove you cannot be trusted in your relationship to keep agreements and be honest you give up a certain amount of privacy for a while in order to help rebuild the trust you broke. If you can't or are not willing to do that, then that's the person's choice, of course, but then they can expect to either lose their partner or never be trusted again (which ends up in losing their partner eventually).

When you're coming into poly from a relationsihp that has been plagued with communication issues, trust issues, lying and breaking agreements there may likely be a different perspective on things and a different way of handling it because you're not dealing with a clean slate of trust. It's like that thread about poly after cheating... only this is poly after lying. It can be worked through, but both partners have to be willing. I thought for a while we weren't going to be able to make it through, yet we did. But part of that was my husband realizing all that we did have, and realizing all of the hurt and pain he put me through, and realizing that building that back after he destroyed it was going to take time and effort.